


every right thing will find its right place

by couldaughter



Series: creatures that i briefly move along (teacher!jon au) [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, Teacher Jon, WORK DRINKS! BOYS IN THE BAND ORDERED WORK DRINKS!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25431739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/pseuds/couldaughter
Summary: Jon really did flush at that. “I neverdislikedyou,” he said, forcefully. “I just —”“I know, Jon,” said Martin, fond. “No need to rehash.” He turned to Penny, Nick and Sue, and grinned sheepishly. “He was my boss for a bit. I was, um, under-qualified.”“Oooh, office romance,” said Sue. “Never thought you’d have it in you, Jon.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: creatures that i briefly move along (teacher!jon au) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815988
Comments: 40
Kudos: 793





	every right thing will find its right place

**Author's Note:**

> at last martin is... on screen. on page? on word? anyway hes here
> 
> content notes: multiple characters drinking alcohol socially

“Can you believe Jon is _actually_ bringing his husband?” said Sue, clearly delighted.

Penny batted at her waving hands. “Watch it, you’ll get wine on my nice clean dress. And yes I can, you absolute gossip. I’m more surprised he’s coming at all, bless him.”

Nick nodded pensively, then took a meditative sip of her daiquiri. “He doesn’t seem like the social type. Not that there’s any issue with that, of course. I love a wallflower as much as the next social butterfly.”

“What, so you can feed on them? Weirdo,” Penny said, and braced against Nick’s indignation.

Sue rolled her eyes. “Worse than a sideshow, you two,” she said. “Look sharp, I think that’s him just arriving.”

She nodded towards the entrance, where Jon was indeed holding the door for, presumably, his husband. He caught Vicky’s gaze immediately and nodded in greeting, smiling slightly. He wasn’t a big smiler, was Jon.

“Evening,” said Sue, as Jon made his way over. His husband, a tall, broad-shouldered man with greying hair and round glasses, followed behind. “This your other half?”

“Yes,” said Jon, with a touch of pride that Penny almost wanted to coo over. “This is Martin. He made me come to this, so you can thank him when I get maudlin three drinks in.” His voice was dry as the desert, as usual. 

“Don’t worry about that,” said Penny, raising her own glass in greeting. “Nice to meet you, Martin.”

Martin ducked his head and smiled. It seemed he was one of those men who didn’t like being tall. “Nice to meet you too,” he said, as he slid into the booth after Jon, who immediately pressed closer into Martin’s side. “Er, happy birthday! I hope you had a good day.”

Penny grinned at him. “I did, thanks! Did Jon tell you about the roaming troupe of singers?”

A few of the more enterprising Year 4s she’d taught back when they were littlies had arranged among themselves to find her while she was on playground duty and serenade her with a variety of birthday songs. It had been excruciatingly embarrassing and also really very touching, which Penny was used to after half a decade of working in education. 

“Yeah, he did actually,” said Martin, sounding slightly more confident. “It’s really lovely that you can maintain that positive dynamic even when you haven’t taught them in a while.”

“They’re little menaces, and I love them,” she agreed sagely. “Our class was very enthusiastic as well, once _someone_ let the cat out of the bag.”

He’d given her a card in the morning, before all the kids arrived, and lulled her into a false sense of security just long enough to sing the register song and _betray her_. The kids had gone, to put it simply, feral.

Jon had the grace to look sheepish. “I simply thought they might like to make some cards during explore time. You did mention needing to develop fine motor skills, and they _did_ have a good time with it.” It wasn’t the most convincing argument when he’d also spent twenty minutes after school on his knees in the art corner scrubbing paint off the lino.

“Well, I’ll be keeping Kaya’s masterpiece on the fridge, so I suppose I’ll have to thank you,” she said. Kaya had painted a really quite good picture of a dolphin. Justin, her secret favourite, had wrapped a pebble from the school’s peace garden in a page ripped from the Argos catalogue. “And, while I’ve got your undivided attention — what’ll you have?”

“Oh,” said Jon. He squinted at the cocktail menu for a few moments. “I think I need to go and see what they have that’s a bit less… elaborate.” Martin snorted. “I can get the next round while I’m ordering,” he offered. 

“That’d be lovely Jon, thank you,” said Sue, cutting Penny off before she could protest. “I’ll have a half of cider, ta muchly.”

He took the rest of the orders without writing them down — a rookie mistake, Penny thought — and disappeared to the bar. 

Sue turned her attention to Martin. Martin, pinned, chuckled nervously. He looked unremarkable, besides the premature grey in his hair, round-faced beneath round glasses. His jeans and jumper combo was a bit unseasonable for May, but he could just be running cold. He didn’t have tiny pinhole scars, or a slash across his throat, or a handprint burn. It was honestly a bit alarming, how normal he looked.

“So, Martin,” said Sue, one elbow on the table. “What do you do?”

Martin looked genuinely panicked at being questioned before visibly relaxing. “I’m a writer,” he said. “I had to leave my last office job because the company liquidated, and I thought it was as good a time as any to, um, pursue something a bit less soulless.” He tapped his index finger against the rim of an empty glass, _tap tap tap_ , and smiled again. It was a bit shaky, Penny thought. She sighed. Too many people her age had anxiety issues.

She poked Sue in the ribs. Sue turned to her only long enough to roll her eyes. “That’s interesting,” she said, leaning forward. “What sort of writing do you do? Penny’s always tapping away at something, maybe you two could chat about it.”

“Poetry, mostly,” said Martin. He’d leaned back as Sue leaned forward, pressing into the padded chair back. “I’m working on a, um, a zine?”

“Oh, cool,” said Nick. Nick, Penny knew, was very into indie publishing, although she had no idea how she’d picked it up as a hobby. “There’s a zine festival happening in a few months, you should check it out.”

“I’ll, um, have to look into it, thanks!” Martin said, sounding genuinely interested. “I’m only in the planning stages at the moment, I’m not much of a graphic designer really.”

“That’s fair,” said Nick. “It can be tough branching out like that, especially if you’ve been stuck in the nine-to-five grind for a while.”

“It was rough, yeah,” said Martin, something odd in his voice. “I was sleeping at work for a while, did my back in something awful.”

“Oh, yikes,” said Penny. “You were in research, right?” Jon had mentioned that once, when they were going over phonics planning for the term. 

“Mostly,” said Martin. He ran a hand through his hair — the grey in it made it hard to guess his age, same as with Jon, but Penny thought he couldn’t be more than his mid-thirties. Definitely young to have worry lines etched quite that deep. “I don’t really like talking about it, to be honest. Even when my husband’s coworkers are looking for gossip,” he said, glancing at Sue, who shrugged. 

“Gossip’s half our diet, working at a school,” offered Nick. “Couldn’t survive without a bit of drama going on behind the scenes. It’s why we’re the only profession that cheers when someone starts having an affair.”

Martin snorted. “Jon’s not much of a gossip, or at least he says that, but he does keep telling me all about who said what and to who… Oh, Jon!” he said, turning just as Jon came into view balancing a tray in one hand. “Let me grab those, you weirdo, I don’t know why you insist on this circus act every time —”

Jon turned to look at Penny and rolled his eyes. Penny rolled hers right back as Martin took a few drinks off the tray and distributed them. She took her Cosmopolitan with a quick ‘thanks’ and settled back in her seat.

“Your work friends were just vetting me,” said Martin. “It’s a good thing I have so much practice answering questions.”

This had the tone of an in-joke. Jon huffed and said nothing. Martin slid an arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek which made Jon look somewhat mutinous, beneath the slight flush.

“You’re very sweet together,” said Nick. “How long have you been married?”

Jon sighed, as if even this basic personal information was somehow top secret. He’d been quite tight-lipped with Penny when she’d tried some gentle prying — she could admit to herself that she was nosy, but she didn’t mean any harm by it. Martin patted his shoulder and said, “Two years in October.”

“Oh,” Nick said, surprised. “I would’ve thought longer.”

“Well, we’ve known each other for a decade,” said Jon. “I suppose that would skew things a little.”

“It really has been that long, hasn’t it,” Martin mused. “Wow, and to think you didn’t like me for half of it.”

Jon really did flush at that. “I never _disliked you_ ,” he said, forcefully. “I just —”

“I know, Jon,” said Martin, fond. “No need to rehash.” He turned to Penny, Nick and Sue, and grinned sheepishly. “He was my boss for a bit. I was, um, under-qualified.”

“Oooh, office romance,” said Sue. “Never thought you’d have it in you, Jon.”

Jon hid his face in his drink. Nick, thankfully, seized the conversation and turned it onto something completely non-mortifying.

“Anyone been watching I’m A Celeb?”

Well, mostly non-mortifying.

At the end of the night, three drinks deep and ready for bed, Penny tugged Jon into a hug. He went willingly, if somewhat confused by the gesture, and rested his hands carefully on her lower back.

“Thanks for coming,” she said, only slurring a little. “It was really nice meeting Martin.”

“ _He’s_ really nice,” said Jon, not quite slurring but vowels a little rounded. He’d stopped after one proper drink, despite his promise of three, but he was clearly a bit of a lightweight. “Keeps asking to be the secret reader. Kids would eat him alive.”

“Oh, no,” said Penny. Her taxi was three minutes away, according to her phone. Nick had popped to the loo while Sue guarded the bags. “They’d love him. They love _you_ and _you_ love _him_ , ‘s just… logic.”

Jon hummed thoughtfully. Martin chose that moment to appear, prophetically, and hand them a glass of water each. 

“Heard you talking about me,” he said to Jon, unbearably fond. Penny stepped back and let Jon lean sideways into Martin’s chest. “All good things, I hope?”

“ _Obviously,_ ” said Jon.

**Author's Note:**

> have only been to work drinks for a school once and i only faintly remember it. at one point the receptionist shouted CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! at me as i tried to down a really not very good cocktail in one go
> 
> there is a [prologue to this fic](https://dotsayers.tumblr.com/post/624288781373194240/bonus-fic-the-invite) from jon's pov available on my tumblr @dotsayers! 
> 
> twitter is also @dotsayers, i just unlocked so you can really preview my #content
> 
> title is from WAITRESS THE MUSICAL, because i am terrible at finding titles


End file.
